Disgrace of UK stand on cluster bombs

It is disgraceful that the UK is joining China, Russia and the US to block moves to achieve an international prohibition on cluster bombs at the upcoming weapons review conference (Report, October 19). We should take the moral lead and join Sweden in calling for a a worldwide ban. By their indiscriminate nature and impact on civilians, cluster bombs violate fundamental principles of humanitarian law. In Lebanon, for instance, 60% of all munitions used by Israel were deployed in or near civilian areas.

Very high battlefield failure rates of up to 40% leave wide areas with a deadly crop of unexploded bomblets, bringing severe disruption to safe movement, relief efforts and reconstruction work. Agricultural livelihoods will be impeded for decades. In Vietnam, 30 years after the bombing stopped, cluster bomblets kill and injure hundreds of civilians every year. Despite this, the UK used cluster munitions in Kosovo and Iraq (over 2,100 clusters in Iraq, containing over 100,000 sub-munitions). There is no military need for these weapons, which is presumably why the RAF will be taking its cluster munitions out of service by 2010. The weapons bear a heavy stigma and undermine the moral basis of our military operations.

In June, Margaret Beckett said of the proposed arms trade treaty, "our challenge is to turn that strong moral case into real progress on the ground". She should start by pressing for a ban of a weapon which is militarily obsolete and an enduring death-trap for civilians. Nick Harvey MPLib Dem defence spokesman